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Successful Futures

come from helping more young people achieve their potential, propelled by high expectations and real opportunities from a supportive community.

Leading Together

Established in 2010 as a multi-year, multi-million-dollar education initiative, Believe 2 Become taps the wisdom of community, the power of agency, and the rigor of data to unleash the unlimited potential of students, families, school, and community in Greater Grand Rapids.

Community

The wisdom of community: from parents, residents, educators, businesses, advocates, and youth, provides essential, ongoing direction to the initiative.

Agency

Empowering parents and students to share their voice and act on their own behalf is one of the most effective ways to help students achieve greater academic gains.

Data

A relentless focus on meaningful data collection, aggregation, and analysis has yielded important insights about the value of Believe 2 Become investments.

A network of individuals and organizations joins forces to help more children achieve their potential

The “I Believe I Become” rallying cry is born, along with the Believe 2 Become identity

2010

B2B launches Summer Learning Academy Community engagement begins with public gatherings in the Central Hope Zone

2011

B2B Baby Scholars recruits its first cohort of families

Cambridge Education begins working with GRPS on the Teacher Effectiveness project

Tripod Survey of students and teachers is introduced to provide helpful feedback to GRPS teachers and principals on instructional practices

2012

Community engagement deepens the strategy to include school-based parent meetings in the Hope Zones B2B premieres documentary film Helping Children Succeed featuring community leaders

GRPS publishes its first parent manual with Believe 2 Become messaging

Partners in School Innovation begins working with GRPS on a middle school turnaround project

2013

With B2B support, GRPS launches its first attendance challenge

B2B and GRPS team up to launch the first Parent University in Michigan

Summer Learning Academy and Baby Scholars celebrate student and family achievements at Successfest, a collaboration of Believe 2 Become and GRPS Basis Policy Research begins working with GRPS to develop the Opportunity Index

Imagine U emerges as a strong community-wide professional learning community committed to helping youth develop the mindsets, skills, future orientation, knowledge, and agency they will need for successful futures in the 21st century

2017

The Imagine More campaign launches with its eye focused on the successful futures of young people and their families in West Michigan

Workforce Opportunity Report is published and distributed at public forums where leaders in education, workforce development, and captains of industry gathered to discuss solutions to bridge the school to career opportunity gap faced by so many high school graduates

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Believe 2 Become supports successful futures by empowering more young people to achieve their unlimited potential, fulfill high expectations, and seize real opportunities.